


What's the Hero of Fereldan like you doing in a place like this?

by Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, alistair/female brosca is in the past, brosca is done with the world's problems and heartbroken, he's viscount, mixed with some good ol hurt and comfort, this is post inquisition, varric finally meets the last big hero he's yet to meet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26769835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff/pseuds/Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff
Summary: Naia Brosca does not expect to meet the Viscount of Kirkwall in a dingy little tavern like the Hanged Man. She doesn't expect to have her sorrows soothed or have a free therapy session from him either. But, her life had always been anything but ordinary.
Relationships: Alistair/Female Brosca (Dragon Age), Female Brosca/Varric Tethras
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	What's the Hero of Fereldan like you doing in a place like this?

“What’s the Hero of Fereldan like you, doing in a place like this?” It’s terrible, but he’s the first person to notice who she is in this dingy pub in Kirkwall and she knows exactly who he is too. Usually it would bother her, afterall she was here to drown her sorrows, not be fawned over...not that that happened very often anymore. Most people seemed to ignore her, disliking the idea of either a dwarf being the one who stopped the Blight or the idea of a  _ castless _ dwarf stopping the Blight or better yet, the idea of Wardens completely. Besides, after the whole inquisition, tears in the sky mess she wasn’t the hero in demand anymore...The Wardens hadn’t done so well out of that mess either. Naia Brosca officially considered herself retired from hero duties especially after finally finding a way to cure blight sickness and stop the wardens untimely demise due to the calling, and after returning to find the whole of her forces decimated. She was officially retired from fixing other people's messes whether those people be long dead magisters or warden commander Clarel. 

Aeducan, her Mabari, named after Paragon Aeducan for his stand against the Darkspawn, bounced about as Varric sat down beside her on a rickety wooden chair. The Mabari was as tall as the both of them when seated and didn’t settle until Naia gave him a strong look. He settled himself down at her feet, large paws resting beneath his head. She smiled down at him before turning to her new drinking companion. 

“I could say the same to you, Viscount of Kirkwall.” She softens it with a slight smile, she hasn’t smiled fully in years. Truth be told, becoming a Grey Warden had started as a dream come true, a way to get out of Dust Town, an escape from death, and simply ended as a nightmare. That’s what happens when you fall in love with someone above your station, take on more responsibility than any one person can handle, and become the go to person to fix everything. But, she at least had her faithful furry companion out of the whole mess and somehow her life. 

“Touche, but aren’t you supposed to be Commander of the Grey right now? Are you even allowed to be here?” He’s right of course, the last most people had heard she was the Hero of Ferelden, Commander of the Grey, sitting up in Amaranthine trying to recruit, rebuild, and fix whatever messes she was left to inherit. She’d told very few people about her movements over the last 2 years and most people had very little interest in what the Wardens were doing outside of a Blight. 

She leans back in her seat, legs crossed on a small stool, a hand reaching back to run through the dark hair that had grown unwieldy in her long hunt for a cure, a fix. To Varric she looked to be the picture of an exhausted hero, tankard in one hand, dark sullen circles beneath brown sad eyes, but always ready with daggers at her side. She’d grown used to watching her back for a quick knife in the dark or fireball. Although Aeducan was a very good guard dog.

“Well, while I was off trying to figure out how to save us all from the blight and the calling, someone got the _ brilliant”  _ she says this with a twisted, sarcastic smile, nose scrunching in distaste, “idea to use blood magic to ‘save’ the Wardens and supposedly the world, and I came back to decimated forces and a whole load of nugshit to fix...blood magic…” She takes a deep drink from her tankard and raises her hand to gesture for another, gold already on the table, “They wanted  _ me  _ to rebuild, as if it was my responsibility to fix their mess  _ again,  _ to take up that mantle  _ again _ . I said go fuck yourself and put someone else in charge...hopefully with better sense.” Naia Brosca had been royally pissed when she’d heard what had happened, when she’d returned to find out that Warden Commander Clarel had fucked it all up because she had no critical fucking thinking skills. It hadn’t been her plan to return to a decimated force, both physically and in reputation. Who would trust the Wardens now? They had gone from the heroes who saved the world, to the idiots who almost destroyed it. It was a headache of mess to fix and she’d had enough headache inducing messes for a lifetime. 

“Yeah, I kind of had a front row seat to that bullshittery at Adamant. Sorry.” Her eyes darted over to him, evaluating. There’s a genuine furrow to his brow and a look in his eyes that she knows well, a horrible reminiscence of a scene you never wanted to see.

“I joined the Grey Wardens because I won a Proving when I shouldn’t have even been fighting, because Duncan saved me. I became the Hero of Ferelden and Commander of the Grey because Alistair and I didn’t have a choice. I had a choice this time, I'm retired from commanding, from fixing other people’s messes. I’m too old for that.” She had never had the chance to do so many things; travel for pleasure, fall in love (again), marry, have kids, raise them better than her mother ever had, go exploring again, write a book or something. There were so many things that had slipped her notice in the 10 years she’d spent fixing other people’s messes. She was tired of her life catering around fixing other people’s fuck ups, it was about time they fixed their own problems. She wanted to have some of her life back.    
  


“You don’t look a day over 25 to me, topsider”, Varric says it with a teasing smirk, one corner lifting up just so. It’s a look he’s perfected, she’s certain of that because for all her years she still feels the skin of her cheeks heating and her eyes darting away from his.

“Flatterer,” Naia rolls her eyes, she hasn’t been 25 for a while now, but he knows that she’s sure, “I doubt anyone would believe that I was only 24 during the Blight. A Dust Town 24, though.” Truthfully, being raised in Dust Town had given her years on her peers in other parts of Orzammar. She’d had to fight, scrounge, steal, all to feed herself, her sister and her drunken mother. She’d killed for the Carta, killed for her sister, all before she was 20. Maybe, if she’d been an Aeducan or had an actual caste she’d never have been able to do what she did. “10 years on and I feel like I’m 100. I’m old spiritually, Master Tethras, very, very old. 34 doesn’t feel like it used to.” 

“24? Seriously? You became Warden Commander, Hero of Ferelden, slayer of archdemons at 24? Fuck.” They fall into a contemplative silence. Truthfully, most people expected her to be older. It had made it hard to get respect especially when she became Warden Commander, at 24 half the recruits were older than her and getting them to listen had taken a lot of threats and reminders that she’d slayed an archdemon and could damn well kill them if they tested her. 

Varric can’t quite wrap his head around the fact she was so young, that she’d done what seemed impossible to him. At 24 he’d have run away from that sort of responsibility, he’d have high tailed it to the farthest place he could find. At 24 he wouldn’t have been a hero, but he’s learnt that some people are just made that way. Something in them calls for them to do the right thing. 

Naia can’t quite get over the exhaustion and sadness that had her seeking out the Hanged Man on her journey to investigate some Warden ruins. It’d all been that damned letters fault, opening old wounds, reminding her of things she’d chosen to forget, reminding her of how old she was and how little she’d really done for hself. It was still crumpled in her pack, royal seal, scruffy handwriting and all. 

Varric watches her, takes her in. The braids, typically Orzammar in style, pull her brown hair back from her face while leaving the rest loose, the brand on her cheek marks her as casteless, the down turn of her mouth, the slump of her shoulders remind him of how much she’s done in 34 years. It’s more than just retiring that’s brought her here, more than just a desire to get shitfaced after years of being in charge. There’s a story there that he doesn’t quite know yet. But, he wants to. He loves a good story...and he can’t help but be curious about the one Hero he’d not befriended. 

“What’s eating you up, Fereldan?” She chooses not to comment on the name, hoping he’ll pick something more creative in due course. He was a writer after all, though  _ Swords and Shields  _ hadn’t been his best work, so perhaps even prolific writers had their off days. Instead, she decides that she might as well open up to someone and who better to do it with than a fellow dwarf who she’d probably never see again, even if he was Viscount. What were the chances of her staying in Kirkwall? Of befriending Varric Tethras?

She takes a good long look at him, hard, calculating, before softening her gaze back to the tankard in front of her. The ale is bad, but she’s not really drinking for the taste tonight. “People think I was this hero, with a band of friends and that’s it. No big romance story there, no heartbreak, no betrayal...no nugshit politics getting in the way of things.” She takes a deep drink, this is a story no one had told because it would be shameful, not for her, but for him. “No one wants to tell the truth, that I had a lover in a man who I made a king...and then he didn’t need me anymore. Love is...I didn’t know what love was before I became a Grey Warden, but...it hurts, it hurts more than any battle wound, any fall I’ve taken, any joining ritual. It tears you apart...” Naia turns her head away from him to stare at a group not far away playing Wicked Grace, mostly to hide the tears that have started to collect in her eyes. She never talked about it. Not with Zevran or Leliana, Wynn, Sten, Oghren, Morrigan or Shale. None of them. She had too much to do at the time, didn’t allow herself to stop and ponder on it, but that meant she never truly got to heal. 

“Wait...you and Alistair Theirin? King of Ferelden? Shit...well, why aren’t you Queen, Topsider?” He can’t understand why she wouldn’t be. Surely, they’d welcome the Hero of Ferelden with open arms? Surely, if they’d been in love he’d have insisted as king..surely...but then Varric remembers that his stories are always a sugar coated version of reality. That his own experience with love has shown that things don’t work out the way you want them or need them to. Love doesn’t prevail, love doesn’t conquer all and the baker down the street with the simple, normal sort of love always does better than the Hero. 

“He couldn’t have a dwarf for a Queen, for a wife. I was told I could be a mistress, I could be there, in the background, loving him while he parades another on his arm and I refused to be hidden in the shadows like some seedy little secret. Like something dirty and unworthy. I had enough of the dark in Dust Town. I was the Hero of Ferelden and no matter how much I  _ loved  _ him I would not sacrifice my worth like that…” She remembers Dust Town like it was yesterday. Living off of scrapes, hidden away from everyone else because the Casteless were unworthy, a disgrace. She refused to be that girl again, hidden away for someone else's comfort and convenience. 

“I thought that maybe he’d fight for me. Fight to be with me. I would have. I would have done everything in my power to stay with him if I had that sort of position...but he didn’t. Duty, duty, duty. It’s my fault really,” She gives him a long sad look, brows turned down, “I was the one who made him king, I was the one who put him on the throne because I thought he’d be a good king...I was the one who made him think like that, made him put romantic notions aside. Maybe I should have been selfish…”

“So...why are you here?”

“Because I received a letter...royal seal, messy handwriting, pressed rose petals between the pages…” She pulls the crumpled note from her back, the rose petals fall on the table between them, the drying process removing some of their potent red colouring. He suspects there’s more to them than just being a romantic gesture, and can see it by the way she gently strokes one of them with a far off look that there’s some history there. “He’s gotten betrothed to some noble human woman who he barely even knows...I hate that she gets to marry him, that she gets to just because she’s human and noble, because she’s tall and her blood’s right. I was never enough even after the Blight. I slayed an archdemon, I saved Ferelden, I...I was never enough even after all that. What does a dwarf have to do, Varric Tethras?”

It pulls at his heart strings for a multitude of reasons; 1) he’s a romantic and always has been. He likes a happy ending, he likes the lovers to find happiness and be together, he doesn’t like heartbreak, 2) it’s one thing to be hurt because someone doesn’t love you anymore or never did, another thing entirely to know you’d be together if the world wasn’t so damn prejudice or if they just fought a little harder, tried a little more, and 3) because it reminds him of his own sorry love story with Bianca. After all, she was married to another man, he wasn’t allowed anywhere near her and he wasn’t good enough in the first place for her. After the red lyrium affair he’d decided to let that ship sail, let her go and he’d told her so despite her popping up randomly as if she thought she could change his mind. It was the first time she’d ever known him to say no to her, to turn her away. But, damn if it hadn’t been freeing for him. For the first time in a long time he didn’t feel the weight of her on his shoulders. He could see that weight on Naia Brosca now, the wondering, the hoping, the love. The longing for someone who had moved on with their life in a way you had yet to. 

“It’s his loss, Ferelden,” A large, warm hand settles on her shoulder and she leans into it without thinking. How long has it been since someone gave her a comforting hand on the shoulder, a celebratory clap on the back, a hug? A sign of companionship, closeness? She thinks it must have been...must have been nearly 10 years. The last person to hold her was Anders and he’d pissed off and then blown up the chantry in Kirkwall and then pissed off again. She hadn’t seen her old companions in years, they wrote, but it was a shitty imitation of what their group had been before...and Alistair, she hadn’t allowed herself to see him in person except where her presence as Commander of the Grey was needed and every time had been heart wrenchingly distant. 

“Who wouldn’t want to be married to  _ the  _ Hero of Ferelden, c’mon? You’re beautiful, you’re deadly, you have an inspiring origin story.” He counts them off on his fingers with a smile, she can feel a smile tugging at her lips, a storyteller he certainly was. 

He was...different. Alistair had been sweet, goofy, childish, a kid like her. He’d been a romantic but in that boyish sort of way that had endeared her to him because she hadn’t ever known anyone so open, so unchanged by the hardships of the world. Varric was rough, but charismatic. Older, more worldly than Alistair had been, but then she was older and more worldly too now. He was charming, compassionate, and had confidence, but she could see it was a smokescreen behind which to hide. She didn’t know what he’d gone through, other than the bits his stories told, but she knew he was just as tired as her. Probably even more so with the responsibilities of Viscount hanging over his head like a sword waiting to drop. 

It helped that he was handsome. Perhaps in Orzammar he wouldn’t have been ‘dwarf’ enough, no beard just some scruff across his cheeks, no tattoos to show his clan or caste. But, she thought he was more than handsome enough although his chest hair was a little distracting especially 3 ales in. She was sure he did it on purpose, dressed in a way that added to his charm, in a way that would make people think of how masculine and dwarven he was...at least to anyone but an Orzammar dwarf. Leske would have made some joke about it, probably asked if he was hunting for a noble to marry, but Naia didn’t mind. He was nice to look at and she hadn’t had someone nice to look at in a long while. It helped that he was complimentary as well, how long had it been since someone called her beautiful? Too long. 

“No one’s told you that in a while, huh? How long has it been? Since someone gave you an honest compliment that didn’t revolve around how you kill darkspawn?” It’s the furrow of her brow and the averted eyes that give it away, no one’s told her she’s beautiful in a long while and she is. She’s beautiful but clearly able to kill you and honestly, that just makes her prettier to Varric. 

“A...A while...Alistair used to...but then…” It’s hard to explain, that she hasn’t pursued anything with anyone in so long because she still holds out hope that maybe Alistair will decide to fight for them, for their relationship that no longer even exists. She lets herself get drawn back into the sea and dashed against the rocks every time he writes a private letter and every time she’s reminded that he isn’t hers and he never will be. This time is the worst, the realisation that he’s not coming back, he’s moving forward without her. That he’s marrying some noble human woman who can give him noble human babies and sit pretty beside him at functions. She wasn’t in his plans and she hadn’t been since he took the throne. 

“I know what it’s like, Ferelden, holding out hope that they’ll come back, that they’ll forsake the other and that you’ll finally get the story you always wanted. But, he’s not coming back, he’s going to marry that girl and you can’t hold on forever, you can’t waste your life waiting for a man that didn’t care enough to fight in the first place. I nearly did. I nearly wasted my life waiting for a woman who got married...it took her making mistakes for me to realise that I...that I was wasting my life waiting for a woman who only wanted me when she needed something fixing.” It’s the most he’s ever shared with someone he barely knows, but he’s growing...maybe, and maybe he’s realising that narrators can have stories to, they just have to choose who to share them with. Varric is also smart enough to know that she needs to hear it, she needs someone to finally tell her that it’s a lost cause and that she deserves another chance at love…and maybe it’s a little selfish, maybe part of him is hoping that she’ll consider him a candidate. 

It hits her like a hurlock to the chest or that broodmother that one time. She thought she’d realised that, that she’d understood that her and Alistair weren’t really going to happen but...truth be told she’s been holding on desperately, fingers clutching at a ledge, hoping he’d come along and help her back up. Hoping that he’d fight for her and the love they once shared. It hurt, it hurt to finally understand that it was a lost cause, that she'd spent 10 years of her life waiting for something which was never going to happen, agonising over someone who wasn’t doing the same. 10 years of seeing him in an official capacity, the physical distance and distance in the way he addressed her as if they’d never travelled together, never kissed, never been in love. She feels like she might be sick or she might burst into tears, both are options, alternatively she feels like storming to Denerim and taking her anger and sadness out on Alistair...although that option might get her arrested which is less than ideal.

Varric chooses to sit back and wait, watching realisation, sadness, and angry flit across her features one by one until she settles back in her chair resigned to the truth. Naia grabs her tankard again and downs the rest of the shitty ale before looking at the ceiling with a big sigh. “Fuck! Do you think it’d look bad if I punched the King of Ferelden in the face?” 

“Mm, the Hero of Ferelden breaks the King of Ferelden’s pretty face? Might cause a slight diplomatic incident but I could always ask Ruffles if she’d help smooth it over.” Naia twists to look at him again and he’s not surprised to see her eyes swimming with tears, though he’d be lying if he said it doesn’t piss him off that a woman who could end the Blight is brought to tears by someone who wouldn’t even be king without her help. It reminds him of Hawke, the tears she shed for Blondie all because she loved him too much and fell too far. At least Hawke had been loved back, Blondie might have been an asshole, understatement by a mile, that blew up the chantry but he loved Hawke, she cried over his revolutionary actions not his love for her. 

Naia Brosca cried because she’d wasted a decade on a love that was never going to come to fruition and of all the places to cry it was the Hanged Man. A shitty little hole in the wall. Not worthy of a hero’s tears. 

“Hey…” His large hand cups her cheek and it’s softer than he expects from her. Part of him expects...He doesn’t even know, maybe chiselled cheek bones, scars and rough skin, but she’s everything but, soft and sweet and it’s hard to think that a face like that belongs to a woman so formidable. It reminds him that appearances can be deceiving. 

His thumb wipes away the tears and it’s the sweetest feeling to her, that someone cares about her wellbeing, about her. Not her title, not who she is. It has her closing her eyes and turning into his hand and she knows the ale is helping, it’s making her more open than she’d usually be, but she thinks Varric probably just has that way about him. Caring enough that he can drag things out of you and get you attached. “Maybe he deserved you once. Maybe he was kind. Maybe he loved you right, but he doesn’t anymore...and it hurts, I know it hurts, but you deserve so much better, Topsider.”

He knows she’s a little past tipsy when she gives him that look, the one that says she’s going to kiss him and he anticipates it turning his cheek so her lips meet the scruff on his jaw. He wants to kiss her, but he knows better. She’s not in a place to make that decision and he won’t be a thing she regrets just because he decided to be a little selfish. So he lets her kiss his cheek and when she pulls back with an offended look he gives her his most charming smile. 

“You’re drunk, Topsider. I’d love to kiss you right now, but you’d regret it and I don’t plan on being a decision you regret, sweetheart.” He says it with that smile, teeth showing hoping she understands that he wants this, or something like this, he’s not entirely sure, but he knows better than to take it right now. He has no doubt that Naia Brosca is a woman he could easily fall into bed with or in love with, but she deserves more than a drunken kiss when she’s clearly still getting over what could have been the love of her life. 

So instead, he helps her up from her seat, her Mabari following behind the two of them as he helps her to her room despite her bad directions. She is uneven on her feet and it’s clear more than ever that she probably doesn’t drink often and that the last ale had put her over her limit. He’s the perfect gentleman, see’s her to her room, gives her Mabari a treat he always carries in his pocket thanks to Hawk’s own, and makes sure she’s safely inside before leaving for his own home. 

In the morning Naia wakes to Aeducan slung over her like the massive lap dog he is, her head pounding and the embarrassing image of trying to kiss the most handsome dwarf she’s ever met, but being politely turned down. She pushes her face into the ratty pillow and screams, but in truth embarrassment and giddy anticipation are feelings which she’s relieved to have after years of longing and heartache. 


End file.
